


The Final Frontier

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Newton Geiszler, Canon Disabled Character, Established Relationship, Halloween Costumes, M/M, Uprising? I don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 08:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16472312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: There's just one thing Newt thinks he and Hermann need to do, to take their relationship to the final level.Now, he doesn't care one way or another about seeing his boyfriend naked, but Hermann dressed up some kind of fun way? He's got a bit of a weakness for the idea...





	The Final Frontier

**Author's Note:**

> My prompts were 'dressing up for each other' and 'making halloween costumes', because what a natural combination, right?
> 
> A nice universe where after saving the world, Newt and Hermann get together and stay together, working for the post-kaiju PPDC... and attending PPDC holiday parties.

“You know what, um… what really makes a relationship, like… serious. Like for real?” Newt asks. He’s hiding behind one of his lab tables, body language screaming out ‘I’m nervous’.

 

“Darling, I’ve told you, we don’t need to do anything you aren’t comfortable with. I have very low… drives, myself. Please rest assured, our relationship is very serious to me and very real. If mashing our neurons together didn’t do it--”

 

“Oh, Hermann, no, gross.” Newt laughs. That takes care of the nervousness, at least. “You thought I was talking about sex?”

 

“Well then what could you possibly be talking about? Ten months together, and you’re suddenly worried about what makes a relationship real?”

 

“Couples Halloween costume!” He slams a bag down on the lab table. At least the table has been sterilized since last there were any kaiju to dissect on it… somehow, Newt kept getting his hands on samples for months after the breach closed, when Hermann would have thought they’d have all dried up, but the flow finally seems to have stopped. 

 

That’s fine, they have enough of what they want to work with. And the rest, well… Hermann’s happy to see the back of the rest. 

 

“I don’t really dress up for Halloween…” Hermann starts, but the way Newt looks at him… “So it will be a new experience for me. But nothing humiliating! No… salt-and-pepper shakers, no front and back ends of some animal, and certainly nothing--”

 

“Nothing kaiju related.” Newt reaches into the bag, pulling out a pair of shirts. Long sleeves, vee necks. One blue, one yellow. “Relax, I’ve got you. I thought maybe you’d… be into this? For me? With me?”

 

There’s no way Hermann could have resisted that winning pout, the batted eyes, the tilt of his head. How could he say no?

 

“I got some stuff to make costumes. I can do the sewing and stuff, if you don’t want to.”

 

Hermann smiles. “You sew? How did I never know that about you? Even with the…”

 

Newt breaks into a slow, easy grin. “I don’t know. I used to sew a lot of patches onto stuff. Plus I had to learn how to hem, like, all my pants… or buy my jeans in the women’s department, and they never have good pockets. Though they do make my ass look fantastic…”

 

“Is that your secret?” He laughs. “Why don’t you show me what I can do to help? So it will be a real couple’s costume, with a real… team effort.”

 

“You wanna hot glue some rickrack onto sleeves once I get ‘em hemmed? Maybe while we watch a movie?”

 

“Sounds like a date.”

 

\---/-/---

 

Newt is on the other side of the bathroom door waiting on him-- cheering him on enthusiastically while he dresses, while he fixes his wig and makeup. 

He’s never really gone to such an effort before, but the thought of Newt’s excitement, of pleasing him with it… well. 

 

And he  _ likes _ his costume. He loves it. The way it all fits, he feels… confident even without the layers he normally hides himself in. The transformation he gets, when he’s fixed the latex ear tips into place, when the wig is on. When he’s applied that touch of the blue eyeshadow Newt had brought him, and the whole look is complete. He hardly looks like Hermann Gottlieb anymore. And it’s not that he doesn’t like looking like Hermann Gottlieb, he’s comfortable with who he is. He just hadn’t realized how excited he’d feel to look like someone else for a night. To be something else, and to get to be that something else with Newt.

 

He emerges, costume complete except for the boots, and Newt whistles, hopping up to get a close look.

 

“Look at you!” Newt grins. He’s got his own hair styled to the best of his ability, rather than a wig, has a slightly more subtle touch of makeup. Has an artful tear across the front of his yellow shirt-- has covered his tattoos with makeup.

 

“Look at you.” Hermann chuckles, clapping Newt on the shoulder. “My captain.”

 

“Do you want a hand with anything? Your makeup looks perfect-- when’d you learn to do eyeshadow?”

 

“A long time ago. I said I don’t normally dress up, I didn’t say I never have.”

 

Newt’s interest is piqued, and Hermann can’t help another little laugh. 

 

“You’re going to show me sometime, right?”

 

“Absolutely not. I don’t even have any of my old things.”

 

“Hermann, come on, don’t tease a guy. I love you in a costume, dude, do you at least have pictures? What did you dress up as?”

 

“Let’s just say… while you were having your punk phase, I was… a bit goth.”

 

There’s something incredibly validating in the way Newt’s jaw drops.

 

“Okay, I mean, first, punk’s not a phase, it’s a way of life, second of all, oh man, dude, you can’t just say that and not have pictures, we would have been… we would have been so cute together back in the day! We’re cute together  _ now _ .”

 

He pulls his phone out, sliding in beside Hermann for a selfie of the two of them. Newt definitely has the right look for Kirk, boyish and devil-may-care-- and, of course, Hermann knows him to be as stubborn, as principled, as foolhardy, as  _ good _ as his costume of choice. Hermann flatters himself to think he fits Spock just as well. He thinks he and Newt fit each other as well. 

 

Most of Newt’s heroes growing up had been incomprehensible to Hermann, when they had discussed such things in their correspondence, and he’s sure the reverse is true as well. Wilderness and animal experts he wasn’t familiar with, Mulder from the X-Files, which Hermann hadn’t grown up watching. An enormous list of punk musicians. But they both had grown up with Star Trek-- the movies, and of course it was The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager when they’d been young, but they still both had a special place in their hearts for the original series. While they could and did argue endlessly over whether TNG or DS9 was the superior successor, TOS they could agree on. They were opposite each other, on which character they idolized-- and on which they would eventually admit to having had a boyhood crush on. 

 

They do look very well together, dressed up… Hermann’s glad he let Newt convince him.

 

“Let me get your boots.” Newt pockets his phone, leans up to kiss Hermann’s cheek. 

 

Hermann lets him. He could manage on his own, it’s not a bad day for pain and flexibility and they’re not difficult, but there’s something so nice about the fact that Newt offers-- that the offer is never made with the expectation that Hermann  _ can’t _ , only with the idea that Newt  _ can _ . There are ways Newt can’t express his devotion. Doing little things for Hermann is a way that he can. Kneeling before him to put on his boots, or all the many times he’s held Hermann’s jacket to be shrugged into, made cups of tea, straightened his clothes or his hair before a meeting. He’s ever eager to display his love in a hundred little ways, things Hermann could do for himself but does not have to because Newt is there wishing to make his life easier, and thrilled to bits with all the little ways Hermann makes Newt’s life easier in return. 

 

“You ready for that Halloween party?” Newt asks, as Hermann offers him a hand to help him up by.

 

“I suppose. I almost think I’d have as much fun just… here.”

 

“What, just dressing up in costumes and sitting around with me, doing nothing?”

 

“Watching a film or just… holding your hand.”

 

“Yeah, but I don’t have as many snacks as the party will, we won’t be able to laugh at everyone’s dance moves… You could hold my hand at the party.”

 

“I could not!” Hermann gasps, in mock indignation. “How obscene!”

 

Newt laughs, taking Hermann’s hand, tracing his fingers over the back. “Your commitment to character is impressive. If the party sucks we’ll bounce early. But let’s go show off, we worked hard to look this good.”

 

“I’m sure I will have fun at the party. I just meant to say… I have fun doing nothing much with you, too. But yes, let’s go and show off, then.”

 

He lets Newt offer an arm to escort him by, in lieu of hand-holding, smiling warmly as he takes it. 

 

“If you ever want to dress up for my eyes only, I want a recreation of your goth phase.”

 

“Hardly. I’m too old to pull those looks off now.”

 

“You are not. You’re good. And I’ll drag out my punk stuff, if you want.”

 

“I don’t have those clothes anymore, it would be-- Well. It won’t be the same looks, but perhaps someday. You can paint my nails black for a weekend. We’ll stay in and reminisce about our wild youths.”

 

It won’t be the same as this, where they present a seamless picture side by side, but… it might be fun. And in their own way, he thinks if they did dress up for each other again like that, they’d look right together. To have Newt look at him as if he’s the most aesthetically pleasing sight on the planet, Hermann wouldn’t mind going to the trouble of finding some wardrobe pieces like the ones he’d given up.


End file.
